#happin

The relationship you take for granted is the one that needs the greatest work. ↗

— George Alexiou

#integrity #joy #kindness #love #relationships

No,' said Gould, with an unusual and convincing gravity; 'I do not believe that being perfectly good in all respects would make a man merry.' 'Well,' said Michael quietly, 'will you tell me one thing? Which of us has ever tried it? ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#happiness #purity #righteous #respect

Create all the happiness you are able to create; remove all the misery you are able to remove. ↗

— Jeremy Bentham

#misery #misery

I would cling to unhappiness because it was a known, familiar state. When I was happier, it was because I knew I was on my way back to misery. I've never been convinced that happiness is the object of the game. I'm wary of happiness. ↗

— Hugh Laurie

#misery #misery

If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy. ↗

— Dorothy Parker

#authors #elements-of-style #favors #grammar #happiness

Children are happy because they don't have a file in their minds called "All the Things That Could Go Wrong. ↗

— Marianne Williamson

#children

The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pendants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. ↗

— Ursula K. Le Guin

#artists

The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#happiness #health #safety #scope-of-government #purpose

To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness - though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless. ↗

— Julian Barnes

#stupidity #stupidity

But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin.' 'In fact,' said Mustapha Mond, 'you're claiming the right to be unhappy.' 'All right then,' said the Savage defiantly, 'I'm claiming the right to be unhappy.' 'Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.' There was a long silence. 'I claim them all,' said the Savage at last. Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. "You're welcome," he said. ↗

— Aldous Huxley

#freedom #happiness #rights #unhappiness #freedom